: Re: How can I gradually grow the romance between the two main characters? What are some ways to increase the romance between two stubborn, but very different characters? Thank you!

Romance in books is as diverse as real life, there's no one way about it.

Try imagining your question in terms of a vacation, you can go on a lot of vacations, all vacations are different, you can go to the same vacation but experience it differently, and you can have different ways of experiencing or going to that vacation in the first place.

Character bonding typically occurs when there's a reason for it however, I would highly suggest against just throwing two characters together just for the hell of it - unless you're writing fanfiction or a romance - however even in these cases, romance has an objective that leads the story.

Ask yourself these questions:

What is the end goal of the protagonist? Do they want to save the world like James Bond? Do they want to rediscover themselves? Or is the objective just to 'get the girl/guy'?
How would these two characters being in a relationship help the protagonist in reaching their goal? Remember that the story you're writing needs to be focused on this goal, not following it leads to tangents or confusion with the audience, if the romance doesn't add anything, it might be better off not having it.

Typically by answering these two, you will find that you can come up with a reason to have a romance in the first place, which is something a lot of authors forget - plugging romance 'just because'. If the character is looking to save the world, the reasoning behind having that relationship is that she has some secret key to solving his problem. If the character is struggling with anxiety, then perhaps the romance revolves around trying to break this anxiety.

Once you solve the core root of the romance, you will be able to figure out a path. When writing, I find its better to pick two points and draw a line (that can go everywhere as long as they meet up) rather than draw a single point, and try to find a point to stop at.

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: Re: How can I gradually grow the romance between the two main characters? What are some ways to increase the romance between two stubborn, but very different characters? Thank you!

More posts by @Shakeerah107

: How do I gain sufficient emotional distance from my work to edit it? This question was asked by a member of my critique group at the beginning of the month and I've been stewing over it

: Looking for best practices on using surveys to gather information for a non-fiction book I am looking for best practices (or references to such) for using interviews to collect information for

: Well, that's not a logline, that's a (somewhat confusing) description of the premise. No agent is going to take a second look. A log line or logline is a brief (usually one-sentence)

: Writing the nitty-gritties of a particular scene I am currently writing the first draft of my novel. I have its outline panned out, down to the chapters, even what should be happening in each

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